99 comments:

My grandmother, a lady at home in royal garden parties, used to lick her finger and wipe a smudge off my face. If they intend on slamming her daughter for this gesture, there are a lot of people who will remember their grandmas, and get angry.

Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.

My God. One could be tempted to slam him for this absolutely vile remark because he's not a father or around families, but I wonder if he's even a human being?

A strength with Palin is she doesn't have to talk about being a family person or having strong family values. She embodies it. This is a great political asset because it allows her to talk about policy matters rather than trying to convince the crowd that she is one of them.

My mother and my sister worked at the same place for a while. One day Mom and Jen were talking to a group of people, some of whom did not know of the relationship. Jen had something on her face; Mom licked her thumb and rubbed whatever it was off Jen's face.

Piper is a little older than my younger son, a little younger than my daughter. In her I see so much of them. She is a little girl with poise and presence and joy, and I love watching her with her family, so natural even though she is completely surrounded by an insane amount of attention.

What do you really do different with a Down Syndrome baby at that age? I have no idea!

Unless there are some other physical issues...nothing. 5 month old babies who are well fed generally sleep almost as much as a cat. When hugged and cuddled they are warm, soft and peaceful babies. The security of being held by loving arms is all they ask.

I have a friend whose Down's Syndrome boy is now 13 and he is the sweetest, kindest and most loving child. Granted his grasp of social niceties is a bit lacking, but if everyone would have the innocence and open trusting nature that his boy has, the world would be a better place. Ok, maybe not so industrialized and technically advanced but spiritually. Better.

No, not at all -- falling asleep is how some infants respond to sensory overload. My older son was just like Trig in that regard -- when around a lot of people or activity, he would be completely fascinated with everything, and wear himself out very quickly trying to keep up with everything. Then he would conk out for a while, sleep like a rock, and wake up ready to do it all over again.

That kind of baby is very easy to travel with. There are babies who scream when overstimulated. I was very happy none of my kids were like that.

You need to get on this story as quickly as possible. WaPo has put a story out coinciding with the Palin VP acceptance speech, implicating Palin with sending Monegan emails about threats received from Wooten.

Palin sent emails to Monegan’s office on Febuary 7, 2007 and July 17, 2007 complaining about threats from Wooten.

Palin fired Monegan on July 11, 2008.

Someone needs to point out to the Washington Post that the firing comes almost a full year after the complaints about Wooten. Put this together with the fact Monegan claims his job wasn’t directly threatened by the Palin family, but he indirectly felt pressure.

That’s pretty thin stuff to base the claim that Monegan felt his job was in jeopardy. (For a whole year) There better be much more to this for the Post to do this sort of story.

From my point of view that was the best video of the entire presidential election season.

Now, I don't mean this to dismiss the cuteness of Obama's daughters. They too can come home with me. If given the opportunity to groom a younger brother, I think they would have performed in a similarly appropriate manner.

Yep, it's the age and the innocence. I admire both families for fostering that.

When my wife and I saw that moment, our first response was to look at each other and ask "wait, what just happened?"

But, really, that's exactly the kind of funny thing that kids just do, and you wouldn't necessarily get that unless you have some of your own or at least spend a lot of time with them. Hence, Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan's snide comment about the baby really was disgusting. And this whole argument that "parading around" Gov. Palin's family makes them fair game for media sliming is either retarded or disingenuous. Every candidate brings their children up on stage, mentions and thanks them in speeches, and demonstrate pride in their accomplishments. That should NOT make open them up to media attacks as if they were public figures themselves.

I'm trying really hard to be an informed voter, and not a 'fan' - but this family and these kids are so adorable that I'm having trouble with it. I laughed out loud at the lick - and then cringed in pain as my ovaries throbbed.

InstaPundit linked tonight to the blogger Ace Of Spades who spent the weekend in an extensive rant attacking Sullivan for being HIV positive and speculating that he had a mental disorder associated with HIV. Talk about despicable.

Andrew Sullivan takes his country seriously enough that he gives a shit who this Palin character is before she's put a heartbeat away from Commander in Chief. Althouse is not so serious. She's busy planning Palin's daughter's wedding, going on about how "hot" the daughter's babydaddy is, and going on about mooseburgers.

No serious posts from Althouse about this Palin character, her qualifications to be VP, and how McCain came to choose her.

But she's "cruelly neutral."

She warned people that they'd better watch what they write about PAlin because it will 'go down in the annals of feminism" blah blah blah. Maybe a blog attack on a female for having breasts will go down in afootnote or two in the annals of feminism, but asking Palin basic questions, questioning her qualifications, vetting her because McCain did not, examining how McCain came to choose a person as his running mate when he knew almost nothing about her, and wondering how someone who hasn't uttered more than three sentences about foreign policy in her entire political career should be the potential Commander in Chief, are not anti-feminist attacks.

But what can Althouse do? She is dependent upon InstaPundit links to keep her traffic up. A majority of her commenters are of the Religious Right persuasion.

Impliedly, from her posts, Althouse thinks everything negative being said about Palin is not valid and a smear. Or is that wrong? She won't say. InstaPundit might stop linking her. Her ultra-right-wing commenters might get made at her.

I've been a blogosphere regular since the inception. Virginia Postrel and her "mezines" got me hooked on this thing and I found people like Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan. Virginia and Glenn were the first people I thought of on 9/11 when no other sites on the web worked. So long ago it wasn't even really web 1.0, despite what we thought, it was web 0.6

Andrew was very smart and thoughtful. Well, a bit gushy (now, now trooper, don't go gutter) about GW, but solid conservative. Spoke to an inner reliability about TNR (which is still there thanks to what I know of the owners then and now. Not as much editorial control as I'd like, but solid people who don't think salafism is great) .

Then his blog got big, and Bush didn't go for gay marriage (I'm really not sure what I feel about it - my enemies love it, the supporters are using the wrong means: a tiny subset of the gay population will use it, and it looks like a wedge for vile misogynists who use polygamy as a weapon - call me reflexively unsupportive thanks to the environment, though if I didn't have to worry about slippery slopes or precedent I'd have no problem). Bush the infallible became Bush the incapable.

Now while I never questioned the "job" Andy was giving 43 when our preferences coincided, it got to be a bit ridiculous. Zeus became Pluto, without all the accomplishments.

Let's be serious, pretty much all of Gay culture is releasing the male sex drive. Vanishingly few gay men get married in jurisdictions where it has been legal for years. Lesbians still move in on the second date. Protestations to the contrary are ridiculous on their face, and the differential in homosexual behaviors between the sexes is the uncomfortable pink elephant!

If some of the stuff coming out on Palin had come out on Obama (for example, Palin actually was in attendance at her church when pro-terrorist and anti-Jew sermons were being made), Althouse would make blog posts about it and her commenters would be up in arms about it.

Little Miss Sullivan is just jealous and it's because deep down he knows that he'll never be able to give birth to a Down's Syndrome baby. Besides, he continually mistakes where sperm is supposed to go. He'd prefer it go into is vagina, but instead has to resort to having it go down his gullet. Ms. Sullivan, I have to tell you, that isn't the way you are going to get pregnant.

Andrew Sullivan has blog post after blog post making valid critcisms and unearthing disturning info about Palin, how Palin was chosen by McCain, and whether Palin is qualified to be Commander in Chief.

The Althouse commenters attack him for this. For caring about his country!

No one is allowed to question Saint Sarah, her qualifications, or how she was chosen to be McCain's running mate. She's Saint Sarah, and we all must bow down.

Sullivan's snide comment about the baby really was disgusting. And this whole argument that "parading around" Gov. Palin's family makes them fair game for media sliming is either retarded or disingenuous. Every candidate brings their children up on stage, mentions and thanks them in speeches, and demonstrate pride in their accomplishments. That should NOT make open them up to media attacks as if they were public figures themselves.

Sullivan is a piece of garbage who spends most of his time stealthily railing against those he thinks use Christianity as a political tool, hence the term Christianist. However, his descent into what I call knee-pad politics is frankly disgusting. His transformation as a leftist is now complete and any semblance or attribution to him as a 'Conservative' would be a lie. Even if it is Sullivan himself who would make that claim, lest he admits to delusions of adequacy.

If one single Palin lover amongst the Althouse commenters has one single comment to make about Palin being attendence at her church when sermons were given attacking Jews and supporting Palestinian terrorists, you'd be the first.

These people who looked hard to see if Obama was in attendance when Rev. Wright said whitey spread AIDS.

"Andrew Sullivan has blog post after blog post making valid critcisms and unearthing disturning info about Palin, how Palin was chosen by McCain, and whether Palin is qualified to be Commander in Chief.

The Althouse commenters attack him for this. For caring about his country!" - LoafingOaf

I'm a seminary student and I wouldn't usually say this, but I'm calling BULLSHIT on you.

They laid into him because he condoned people who were poring over pictures of Palin's daughter, making lurid comments about her physique and completely ignoring the overwhelming tide of evidence against their case (like, you know, that a 44 year old woman is over 30 times more likely to have a DS baby than a teenage girl is).

Even some of the comments on Kos were suggesting they stop peddling in such slime.

Sullivan had your number when he coined "Christianist." We see how right he was now.

Little man, Sullivan couldn't shine my fucking shoes. I am a Christian, you little tart and I don't use my belief(s) as a wedge to attack a hysterical wailing banshee like Little Miss Sullivan. I come straight at him and I don't need Jesus to get in my way to do it, lumpy.

They laid into him because he condoned people who were poring over pictures of Palin's daughter

McCain said he knew the daughter was pregnant last week. McCain should've simply said, "And her lovely daughter is carrying the baby of her fiance" when introducing the family. Would've prevented all the rumors and speculations when people saw photographs where Palin's daughter was pregnant and wearing an engagement ring.

Look at just this thread alone. You ssee how homophobic Althouse's commenters are towards Sullivan. Shameful.

Look at just this thread alone. You ssee how homophobic Althouse's commenters are towards Sullivan. Shameful.

Bub, you wouldn't know a homophobe from a germaphobe. Do you just string words together to pretend at attempting at being meaningful? Or does your witless nature just kind of ooze out onto your keyboard like a bad case of the runs?

First of all, poking fun at Skullivan isn't homophobia. Naming him as a homosexual isn't homophobia. Realizing that he is a homosexual and then being insanely afraid of him afterwards is homophobia. You are confusion homophobia with someone being either homo(in)discriminant or homo(in)tolerant. Neither of which are homophobic in any way, shape, or form. But then again, why would I expect an ignoramus like you to even fathom such a concept?

Applying Andrew Sullivan's own "Why not kill this rumor with [whomever's] medical records?" standard on the Plain-baby claims to Ace of Spade's equally-baseless AIDS-related dementia claims, it is perfectly legitimate to "raise the question" of whether Andrew Sullivan has AIDS-related dementia over and over until Andrew Sullivan releases his medical records to the public to prove he does not.

So, do you wish to retract your defense of Andrew Sullivan, your attack on Ace of Spades, or wallow in your hypocrisy, sir?

That's exactly right; the circumstantial evidence that Andrew Sullivan has lost his capacity for reason and logic is more convincing and compelling than the "evidence" suggesting that Sarah Palin is not Baby Trig's mother.

Consequently, using Sullivan's own standards, we need his medical records. It should be very easy for him to do, and then we can move on.

You know, sometimes I feel sorry for Sullivan, because he's pathetic in a very sad and obvious way.

But then I acknowledge that he's spent the last week (almost) savaging a young teenage girl and her special needs infant brother, and then my pity turns to anger. Fresh, hot anger.

This, from the live-blogging section: Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.

The next thing, people will accuse Andrew Sullivan of being a Catholic.

Shit, you mean his whole purpose is being a Catholic? But he's a gay man who doesn't believe in any of the catechism! OK I'm agnothesit but come the fuck on! There's a reason I respect Orthodox Rabbis more than I respect Conservative or Reform ones, no matter how much I dislike their beliefs.

This, from the live-blogging section: Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.

If one single Palin lover amongst the Althouse commenters has one single comment to make about Palin being attendence at her church when sermons were given attacking Jews and supporting Palestinian terrorists, you'd be the first.

I'd be interested to know more. What was the actual text of the sermon? Are there a whole series of objectionable sermons by her pastor? Was her pastor also her 'spiritual mentor' for years? Had she invited (and then disinvited) him to introduce her at her gubernatorial campaign launch? Did her pastor give awards to anti-Semites as Wright did to Farrakhan? Obama has written a book with a title taken from one his pastor's sermons, and one of the passages that sermon which impressed Obama especially was:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere … That’s the world! On which hope sits."

Point us to something comparable -- a racist utterance like "white folks greed runs a world in need" from her pastor that she thought so highly of she made a special effort to quote it.

Comparing her relationship with her pastor to Obama and Wright -- do Obama supporters really want to get back into that? I suspect the McCain/Palin campaign would very much like a reason to compare the candidates respective churches and review the 'old news' about Obama and Wright and the intimacy of their relationship.

InstaPundit linked tonight to the blogger Ace Of Spades who spent the weekend in an extensive rant attacking Sullivan for being HIV positive and speculating that he had a mental disorder associated with HIV. Talk about despicable.

What’s your point? If he can’t take the heat he should run into the closet.

If you look up despicable in the dictionary, the first definition is Andrew Sullivan. You know Oaf, it is your ilk who stoop to such lows that make me question whether liberals are even human. Sullivan is part of the Obama Democratic attack machine and he is doing his part for his boy. He cares not about the country.

Two stron women made the case for Palin last night. The governor of Hawaii and Palin herself. Case closed.

So did I miss the part where Sarah Palin wrote an autobiography characterizing her kooky preacher as an important spiritual mentor and make five figure contributions to his church and use the church as a political stepping stone?

Obama's two beautiful, very young daughters were on stage with him and their mother after he spoke. It's a grand tradition for newly-nominated candidates, and a charming one, too. Did Andrew Sullivan, or anybody, accuse him of parading them around for the cable news?

It is rather tricky to attack Sullivan's vicious social class bigotry without mentioning his sexual preference. He has wrapped himself tightly in the P-town cocoon and has a palpable fear of "the other." His is a class prejudice, but his social class is a particular affluent segment of the gay community, so his sexuality naturally comes up when calling out the hateful nature of his comments.

Andrew's complaints about the baby being passed around from person to person indicated to me that he has no first-hand experience with small babies and small children. Which is fine, but commenting on all that given his lack was dumb, and makes anyone who's not completely crazy and who does have experience with small children think less of Andrew's intelligence.

I've been reading this blog for about year now. I like Anne's take on most things. At it's best, not bs, at its worst, just making things up to stir the pot. In either case, entertaining and forcing a gut check.What I valued about AA's blog is it's equal opportunity pretension busting.

But you guys have absolutely lost your minds. You buy this whole Sarah Palin thing hook line and sinker-- not a single question about any of it.

And McCain-- come one. No one mentions that he manifests the same personality and judgment problems that have been part of him since the beginning. And that includes his second marriage, his straight talk express, and his recent morphing into whatever kind of thing he is now. He's always been the guy who thinks he should be allowed to get away with things-- who makes egregious errors but can't take criticism.

And clearly, he only has principles when it thinks it makes him look good.

Now that might make him like most politicians-- but come one-- You carry on like he's the Messiah and Sarah Palin is St. Peter.

Obama didn't go to the local library and demand they remove books and then try and fire the librarian when the librarian didn't wanna, like Palin did.

Please do your research. The librarian in question was in a position that is served at the mayor's pleasure. The librarian publicly supported Palin's opponent during the election. When elected, she dismissed the librarian and the chief of police for the same reason (another position that serves at the mayor's pleasure.) The librarian and Palin had a private discussion which satisfied Palin and retained her [the librarian] job.

An almost equally great moment came when Poppa Palin waved Trig's little arm back to the audience when Trig was introduced. Todd Palin had the smile of a proud Poppa and Trig the demeanor of a little baby sleeping in Poppa's arms.

If nothing else, Gov. Palin has done well with her family, and I suspect will do even better this fall along with Senator McCain.

Piper and the other daughters and Track will give the MSM something to do rather than just spin on their thumbs. The other question is whether the MSM will have any followers left.